Prime Minister António Costa spoke this Tuesday about the conclusions of the report of the General Inspectorate of Finance (IGF) regarding TAP. “The IGF report came to explain yet again that the current finance minister and the former finance minister had no intervention or knowledge of this process.”
Costa also commented on the firing of Christine Ourmières-Widener. “TAP has a restructuring plan that is being executed and with great success and anticipation of good results and even recently the European Union praised the plan. And we have only reason to commend the board and in particular the CEO for executing the restructuring plan. The other issue, which is not directly related to this, is that there was a contract that raised doubts about its legality. The government did what it had to do, instructing the IGF to review the contract from which it concluded that it was illegal and made a series of recommendations and one of the conclusions was that the State should assess what to do with the two members who signed the contract And yesterday the finance minister explained that he is the chairman and CEO of the company should be fired”.
The Prime Minister also believed that the resignation of TAP’s executive presidents and board of directors will have no impact on the company’s privatization process, noting that the restructuring plan will continue to be implemented.
“The company’s privatization process is mainly based on the quality of TAP, on the potential of TAP and on how the restructuring plan has been followed. The restructuring plan will continue to be implemented, and therefore the terms of privatization will not be mentioned.” there are several companies that have expressed interest in this process,” the executive leader insisted.
António Costa pointed out that the German company Lufthansa expressed interest last week in participating in the privatization of TAP.
Costa also responded to criticism from the Azores Minister of Finance, who stated that the regional executive (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM) had not been consulted on the matter, and criticized the Republic’s government’s lack of a sense of state. “There must have been a mistake. Just yesterday I called the president of the regional government of the Azores. I didn’t have to agree. I gave the information and that’s what I had to do”.
(updated)
Source: DN
